Watts Towers


The Watts Towers, Towers of Simon Rodia, or Nuestro Pueblo are a collection of 17 interconnected sculptural towers, architectural structures, and individual sculptural features and mosaics within the site of the artist's original residential property in Watts, Los Angeles, California, United States. The entire site of towers, structures, sculptures, pavement, and walls were designed and built solely by Sabato Rodia, an Italian immigrant construction worker and tile mason, over a period of 33 years from 1921 to 1954. The tallest of the towers is. The work is an example of outsider art and Italian-American naïve art.
The Watts Towers were designated a National Historic Landmark and a California Historical Landmark in 1990. They are also a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument, and one of nine folk art sites listed in the National Register of Historic Places in Los Angeles. The Watts Towers of Simon Rodia State Historic Park encompasses the Watts Towers site.

Simon Rodia

Sabato Rodia was born and raised in Serino, Italy. In 1895, aged seventeen, he emigrated to the United States with his brother. Rodia lived in Pennsylvania until his brother died in a mining incident. He then moved to Seattle, Washington, where he married Lucia Ucci in 1902. They soon moved to Oakland, where Rodia's three children were born. Following his divorce around 1909, he moved to Long Beach and worked in construction and other odd jobs before finally settling in Watts in 1920. Among the projects he is known, or claimed, to have worked on are the UC Berkeley campus, the Eastern Star Home and the Bullocks Wilshire building. Rodia began constructing the Watts Towers in 1921.
There has been some question as to what Rodia was called during his lifetime; some sources have cited that his birth name was "Sabatino" and it is disputed as to whether he was called "Simon" during his lifetime. It is widely known and accepted that he was referred to as "Sam" by close friends. He appears as Samuel Rodia in the 1910 U.S. Census, but by the time of the 1920 U.S. Census, he had already become Sam Rodia. His surname has also been misspelled as "Rodella" or "Rodilla".

Design and construction

The sculptures' armatures are constructed from steel rebar and Rodia's own concoction of a type of concrete, wrapped with wire mesh. The main supports are embedded with pieces of porcelain, tile, and glass. They are decorated with found objects, including bottles, ceramic tiles, seashells, figurines, mirrors, and other items. Rodia called the Towers "Nuestro Pueblo". He built them with no special equipment or predetermined design, working alone with hand tools. Neighborhood children brought pieces of broken pottery to Rodia, and he also used damaged pieces from Malibu Potteries and CALCO. Green glass includes recognizable soft drink bottles from the 1930s through the 1950s, some still bearing the former logos of 7 Up, Squirt, Bubble Up, and Canada Dry; blue glass appears to be from milk of magnesia bottles. Their structural design and placement near the builder's home are strongly reminiscent of the gigli towers which feature in an annual festival to St. Paulinus in Nola, Italy, with which he was probably familiar.
Rodia bent much of the Towers' framework from scrap rebar, using nearby railroad tracks as a makeshift vise. Other items came from alongside the Pacific Electric Railway right-of-way between Watts and Wilmington. Rodia often walked the right-of-way all the way to Wilmington in search of material, a distance of nearly.
In the summer of 1954, Rodia suffered a mild stroke. Shortly after the stroke, he fell off a tower from a low height. In 1955, Rodia gave his property to a neighbor and left, reportedly tired of battling with the City of Los Angeles for permits, and because he understood the possible consequences of his aging and being alone. He also mentioned that the towers were frequently vandalized by neighbors. He moved to Martinez, California, to be with his sister. He remained there for the next eleven years until his death in 1965.

Preservation after Rodia

Rodia's bungalow inside the enclosure burned down as a result of an accident on the Fourth of July 1956, and the City of Los Angeles condemned the structure and ordered it all to be destroyed. Actor Nicholas King and film editor William Cartwright visited the site in 1959, and purchased the property from Rodia's neighbor for $2,000 in order to preserve it. The city's decision to pursue expediting the demolition was still in force. The towers had already become famous and there was opposition from around the world. King, Cartwright, architects, artists, enthusiasts, academics, and community activists formed the Committee for Simon Rodia's Towers in Watts. The committee negotiated with the city to allow for an engineering test to establish the safety of the structures and avoid their demolition.
Tests conducted on October 10, 1959, found that the towers were capable of withstanding lateral forces of up to.

Conservation and damage

The Committee for Simon Rodia's Towers preserved the site independently until 1975 when, for the purpose of guardianship, they partnered with the City of Los Angeles and then with the State of California in 1978. The Towers are operated by the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department and curated by the Watts Towers Arts Center/Charles Mingus Youth Arts Center, which grew out of the Youth Arts Classes originally established in the house structure.
In February 2011, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art received a grant from the James Irvine Foundation to scientifically assess and report on the condition of the Watts Towers, to continue to preserve the undisturbed structural integrity and composition of the aging works of art. Weather and moisture caused pieces of tile and glass to become loose on the towers, which are conserved for reattachment in the ongoing restoration work. The structures suffered little from the 1994 Northridge earthquake in the region, with only a few pieces shaken loose. An extensive restoration project by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art began in 2017. The site re-opened in November 2022 when the work was finished.

California Historic Landmark marker

Marker on the site reads:
NO. 993 WATTS TOWERS OF SIMON RODIA – The Watts Towers are perhaps the nation's best known work of folk art sculpture. Using simple hand tools, cast off materials Italian immigrant Simon Rodia spent 30 years building a tribute to his adopted country and a monument to the spirit of individuals who make their dreams tangible. Rodia's Towers inspired many to rally and preserve his work and protect it for the future.

Special exhibits

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art mounted a 1962 photographic exhibition, Simon Rodia’s Towers in Watts: A Photographic Exhibition, which was the first museum exhibition on the art or Simon Rodia and the towers.
Two artist interviews, and were produced in 2012 by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as part of its Exhibitions on View series.

In popular culture

The Simon Rodia Continuation High School in Watts is named for Simon Rodia.

Literature

Jazz musician Charles Mingus mentioned Rodia's Towers in his 1971 autobiography Beneath the Underdog, writing about his childhood fascination with Rodia and his work. There is also a reference to the work in Don DeLillo's novel Underworld.
California-based poet Robert Duncan featured Rodia's Towers in his 1959 poem "Nel Mezzo del Cammin di Nostra Vita," as an example of democratic art that is free of church/state power structures.
In her 1974 book, Eve's Hollywood, Eve Babitz describes a visit to the towers.
In his book White Sands, Geoff Dyer writes about his visit to the Watts Towers in the chapter "The Ballad of Jimmy Garrison".
The short story "With Virgil Oddum at the East Pole", by science fiction writer Harlan Ellison, is directly inspired by the Watts Towers and dedicated to the memory of Sabotini Rodia. The story placed first in the 1986 Locus Award for Best Short Story.

Film

  • The 1957 short documentary film The Towers, by William Hale, includes voice recordings of Rodia and footage of the artist at work. The film incorrectly refers to the artist as "Simon Rodilla". The film was preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2009.
  • In the 1967 movie Good Times, Sonny & Cher dance around in one of the towers.
  • In the 1972 movie Melinda the title character is taken to see the towers.
  • In the 1973 concert documentary Wattstax the towers are repeatedly featured from multiple vantages.
  • The climax of the 1976 blaxploitation movie Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde takes place at the towers.
  • The climax of the 1977 blaxploitation movie Abar, the First Black Superman takes place at the towers.
  • The 1988 movie Colors ends with Sean Penn near the towers.
  • The 1991 movie Ricochet, starring Denzel Washington, climaxes with Washington's character swinging on the towers.
  • The 1993 movie CB4 shows Chris Elliott recording a piece for his character's documentary in front of the towers.
  • The 1993 movie Menace II Society shows the towers at the beginning of the 1993 introduction.
  • The 2003 movie Bringing Down the House depicts the towers near the climax of the film where Queen Latifah's character returns home to Watts while on the run.
  • The 2006 documentary I Build the Tower focuses on Rodia, and his creative vision and skill in building the Towers. The 1987 docudrama Daniel and The Towers is about them also. The Towers of Simon Rodia is a 2008 documentary filmed in digital 3-D.
  • The 2016 movie La La Land shows the film's main characters visiting the towers in a montage sequence.